[steppenwolf]

Dr. Eric R. Pianka

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forrest_Mims

He wrote some Amateur Scientist columns for Scientific American magazine in 1990, but the magazine refused to hire him after discovering that Mims was a creationist and had doubts about evolution. However, the magazine did say that Mims' work was "great", "fabulous" and "should be published somewhere."

In 2006 Mims expressed concern with the lectures of scientist Dr. Eric R. Pianka. In these lectures before the Texas Academy of Science, Mims alleges that Mr. Planka advocated genocide by means of the ebola virus to exterminate 90% of the human population. Forrest Mims was further outraged when the Texas Academy of Science awarded Pianka with a plaque naming him "2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist". No other sources have as yet confirmed Mims's story.

[linskyjack]

Yo, Steppenwolf--whatever you are smoking I want some.

[angelize56]

Mims seems to have no one to back up his claim!

About Pianka....after reading this short blurb on him from Wikipedia..I can see why he might be a tad upset at the world!

Eric R. Pianka was born in Siskiyou County along the California-Oregon border in 1939. At age 13, he was seriously injured in a Bazooka blast in the front yard of his childhood home in Yreka, California. His left leg became gangrenous, and he lost 10 cm of his tibia, as well as the terminal digit of the middle finger on his right hand. Pianka's childhood injury left him with a short and partially paralyzed leg, which seldom slowed him down very much. In later life, his short leg resulted in spinal scoliosis and cervical spondylosis (an S-shaped spine and a pinched brachial nerve between neck vertebrae).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_R._Pianka

[steppenwolf]

mims is on radio right now at
www.prisonplanet.com

[steppenwolf]

you may think there are no monsters but china has a law you can have one child and they execute people so wake up!!

there are evil demagouges out there

pat robertson agrees i think i heard ,on chinas abortions

[holy_saiyan1]

I'm willing to be open to the idea that a university professor or scientist holds ideas that the mainstream of society would consider as "out there" or "just plain wrong". If you can't think of any professors or scientists that fit this description off the top of your head, just google "Ward Churchill" or "Immanuel Velikovsky".

If in fact Mr. Pianka did say the things that Mims claims he did, this man should be placed under a great deal of scrutiny. According to The Seguin Gazette, Pianka said that:

"Good terrorists would be taking [Ebola Roaston and Ebola Zaire] so that they had microbes they could let loose on the Earth that would kill 90 percent of people."

If in fact this was said, I think something needs to be done about this guy. I'm all for free speech in the classroom, but when professors start advocating homicide on a global scale, through the use of dangerous biological agents and/or bioterrorism, that is a bit too far.

[steppenwolf]

the prof is a terrorist

[valis]

Originally Posted by steppenwolf

you may think there are no monsters but china has a law you can have one child and they execute people so wake up!!

there are evil demagouges out there

pat robertson agrees i think i heard ,on chinas abortions

okay, you lost me here. How does this figure into this thread again?

[cristobal03]

Originally posted by holy_saiyan1:

If in fact this was said, I think something needs to be done about this guy. I'm all for free speech in the classroom, but when professors start advocating homicide on a global scale, through the use of dangerous biological agents and/or bioterrorism, that is a bit too far.

Disclaimer: semantic argument ensues.

I haven't read the article that you linked, and I haven't seen a transcript of these comments. But from what I see here, I don't believe the professor is advocating anything. It appears to me that he's making a factual statement about hypothetical criteria qualifying the characteristics of an entity engaging in terrorism. It's true; if somebody did that, they would be meeting a vast majority of the conditions required to be a terrorist. Furthermore, if an entity properly accomplishes or exceeds a set of definitive requirements, we can say that the entity was successful--or good--at fulfilling the definition. In other words, calling someone a "good terrorist" is not of itself an advocacy of terrorism or terrorist acts. It can mean that someone has had success engaging in terrorist acts. I would say Osama bin Laden is a good terrorist because he and his organization have had success achieving their goals. It is unarguably a poor choice of words, but by itself the statement does not mean I support terrorism in any way.

Now, there are certain nuances to oral presentations that do not translate to written transcripts--inflection, timbre, contextual attitude, and so forth. So I don't know how that professor feels. I'm just saying, given the quoted phrase, it's quite a leap to say he "advocates" terrorism. If I made the quoted statement, and action was taken against me because someone said I advocated terrorism, I'd sue that person for libel.

But that's just me.

chris.